]]>Like a novelist, Norman Rockwell had a keen eye for small moments in ordinary life that signified broader trends. One such discovery occurred in the summer of 1919 when Rockwell, his wife Irene, and her family travelled to Potsdam, New York, to celebrate homecoming at Irene’s alma mater, Potsdam Normal School. In honor of his wife, Rockwell illustrated the cover for the special anniversary issue of the school’s alumni magazine—a gift popular with all of the attendees, especially Irene. For the first time, Rockwell felt like one of the family.

After the festivities, the family gathered at their summer camp a few miles away in Louisville Landing. Relaxing on the shoreline of the St. Lawrence River, conversations led to predictions about the future decade.

A spirited discussion followed, but soon Rockwell’s brother-in-law, Howard, and Irene’s father grew restless and invited Rockwell to walk with them. The three men eventually ended up at the town’s small dance hall, watching out-of-towners dance to the latest hits. As fascinating as the dancers were, several couples ringing the perimeter of the dance floor—sitting face-to-face, knee-to-knee and moving small heart-shaped objects (planchettes) on Ouija boards—were even more intriguing to Rockwell. Recalling their earlier conversation, the artist joked to Howard, “Maybe they can predict what the ’20s will bring.”

Nothing more was said about the matter, but six months later on February 3, 1920, Howard visited Rockwell in his New Rochelle studio to wish him happy birthday. Walking over to a couple of paintings resting on easels, he commented to Rockwell, “This looks like one of the couples using the Ouija board last summer.”

In fact, it was. The previous summer’s weekend celebration in Potsdam inspired the illustration “Ouija Board” featured on the May 1, 1920, cover of The Saturday Evening Post (above). Norman thought it was a trendy cover, perfect for the new decade, and used New York City models Betty Keough and Henry Von Bousen in the illustration.

Another canvas nearby featured a young couple looking at blueprints of a new house with a small child beside them. Howard asked, “Will this be the Rockwell family someday?”

]]>As the Spirit Moves, Part V: Aunt Bertha’s Snappy Workhttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/04/15/post-fiction/classic-fiction/spirit-moves-aunt-berthas-snappy-work.html
http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/04/15/post-fiction/classic-fiction/spirit-moves-aunt-berthas-snappy-work.html#respondWed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=31445I would back Aunt Bertha against any living solitaire player for any amount of money you want, only providing that the judges leave the room during the contest.

But when you come right down to it there are few who can get more out of a Ouija board than our own Aunt Bertha. Her work is not so highly systematized as that of Mrs. Both, but it is pretty fairly spectacular, in its way.

I knew that Aunt Bertha was going to get in some snappy work on the Ouija board; I could have told you that before I ever saw her in action. She has always been good at anything anywhere neatly like that. Now you take solitaire, for instance. I don’t think I ever saw a prettier game of solitaire than that which Aunt Bertha puts up. You may be looking over her shoulder while she deals out the cards for a game of Canfield, and from the layout before her you would swear that she had not a chance of getting more than one or two aces up, at most. In fact, it looks so hopeless that you lose interest in the game, and go over to the other end of the room to get a magazine. And when you come back Aunt Bertha will have all the cards in four stacks in front of her, and she will smile triumphantly and exclaim: “What do you think of that? I got it again!”

I have known that to happen over and over again; I never saw such luck in my life. I would back Aunt Bertha against any living solitaire player for any amount of money you want, only providing that the judges leave the room during the contest.

It was no surprise to me to find that she had just the same knack with a Ouija board. She can take a Ouija board that would never show the least signs of life for any­body else and make it do practically everything but a tailspin. She can work it alone or she can make a duet of it—it makes no difference to her. She is always sure of results, either way. The spirits seem to recognize her touch on the board im­mediately. You never saw such a remark­able thing; it would convert anybody to spiritualism just to see her.

Aunt Bertha asks a question of the spirits, and the words are no more than out of her mouth when the planchette is flying about, spelling out the answer almost faster than you can read it. The service that she gets is perfectly wonderful. And, as she says herself, you can see that there is no deception about it, because she does not insist upon asking the ques­tion herself; anyone can ask whatever he can think of—there are no limits. Of course, the answers have occasionally turned out to be a trifle erratic, but then, to quote Aunt Bertha again, “what does that prove?” The spirits never claimed to be right all the time. It is only human of them to make a slip once in a while.

As the Spirit Moves
by Dorothy Parker
Originally published in the Post on May 22, 1920.

She can go deeper into the affairs of the Other Side than a mere game of questions and answers, if you want her to. Just say the word, and Aunt Bertha will get you in touch with anybody that you may name, regardless of how long ago he or she may have lived. Only the other night, for instance, someone sug­gested that Aunt Bertha summon Noah Webster’s spirit, and in scarcely less time than it takes to tell it, there he was talking to her on the Ouija board, as large as life. His spelling wasn’t all that it used to be, but otherwise he seemed to be getting along splendidly.

Again, just to show you what she can do when she sets her mind to it, she was asked to try her luck at getting connected with the spirit of Disraeli—we used up Napo­leon and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar and all the other stock characters the very first week that Aunt Bertha began to work the Ouija board, and we had to go in pretty deep to think up new ones. The planchette started to move the minute that Aunt Bertha put her hands on it, if you will be­lieve me, and when she asked, “Is this Disraeli?” it immediately spelled out, “This is him.” I tell you, I saw it with my own eyes. Uncanny, it really was.

There seems to be nobody whom Aunt Bertha cannot make answer her on the Ouija board. There is even a pretty strong chance that she may be able to get Long Distance, after she has had a little more practice.

]]>http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/04/15/post-fiction/classic-fiction/spirit-moves-aunt-berthas-snappy-work.html/feed0As the Spirit Moves, Part IV: Henry G. Takes to Versehttp://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/04/09/post-fiction/classic-fiction/spirit-moves-iv-henry-takes-verse.html
http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2011/04/09/post-fiction/classic-fiction/spirit-moves-iv-henry-takes-verse.html#respondWed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/?p=31443She has been accomplishing perfect wonders on the Ouija board; she swung a wicked plan chette right from the start.

And Mrs. Curley, who is always so agreeable about doing anything like that, did some of her original child im­personations, in her favorite selections, “Don’t Tell the Daisies I Tolded You, ‘Cause I Promised Them Not to Tell”; and “Little Girls Must Always Be Dressed up Clean­, Wisht I Was a Little Boy”. As an encore she always used to give, by request, that slightly rough one about “Where Did Baby Bruvver Tum Fwom, That’s What Me Wants to Know,” in which so many people think she is at her best. Mrs. Curley never makes the slightest change in costume for her specialty–she doesn’t even remove her chain­ drive eyeglasses–yet if you closed your eyes you’d really almost think that a little child was talking. She has often been told that she should have gone on the stage. Then Mr. Bliss used to sing “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,” and would gladly have done more, except that it was so hard to find songs that suited his voice.
mar
Those were about the only numbers that the program ever comprised. Mr. Smalley volunteered to make shadow pictures and give an imitation of a man sawing wood, including knots, but Mrs. Both somehow did not quite feel that this would have been in the spirit of the thing. So the intellectual, Sunday evenings broke up, and the local mental strain went down to normal again.

Mrs. Both is now one of the leaders in the home research movement. She has been accomplishing perfect wonders on the Ouija board; she swung a wicked plan­chette right from the start. Of course she has been pretty lucky about it. She got right in touch with one spirit, and she works entirely with him. Henry G. Thompson, his name is, and he used to live a long time ago, up round Cape Cod way, when he was undeniably a good fellow when he had it. It seems that he was interested in farming in a small way, while he was on earth, but now that he has a lot of time on his hands he has taken up poetry. Mrs. Both has a whole collection of poems that were dictated to her by this spirit. From those that I have seen I gather that they were dictated but not read.

As the Spirit Moves
by Dorothy Parker
Originally published in the Post on May 22, 1920.

But then, of course, she has not shown me all of them. Anyway, they are going to be brought out in book form in the fall, under the title “Heart Throbs From the Here­after.” The publishers are confident of a big sale, and are urging Mrs. Both to get the book out sooner, while the public is still in the right mood. But she has been having some sort of trouble with Henry, over the Ouija board. I don’t know if I have it quite straight, but it seems that Henry is behaving in a pretty unreasonable way about the percentage of royalties that he insists must go to the Thompson estate.

But aside from this little hitch–and I dare say that she and Henry will patch it up between them somehow–Mrs. Both has got a great deal out of spiritualism. She went about it in the really practical way. She did not waste her own time and the spirits’ asking the Ouija board questions about who is going to be the next President, and whether it will rain to-morrow, and what the chances are for a repeal of the Volstead Act. Instead she sat right down and got acquainted with one particular spirit, and let him do the rest. That is really the best way to go about it; get your control, and make him work your Ouija board for you, and like it. Some of our most experienced mediums agree that that is the only way to get anywhere in parlor spiritualism.